


What Makes a Mother?

by theartofbeinganerd



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bus Kids - Freeform, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Mama May and her Ducklings, Mother's Day, Post Season Four, team as a family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 13:45:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10900572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartofbeinganerd/pseuds/theartofbeinganerd
Summary: It's Mother's Day, and a celebration in her honor is the very last thing May expects - which happens to work in Daisy, Fitz, and Jemma's favor.*Set post Season Four





	What Makes a Mother?

**Author's Note:**

> Or, alternatively, Melinda May's Mother of All Mother's Days
> 
> Given that Season Four has been over the period of like a month, this story takes place roughly five months after the current arc, after some mandatory healing has taken place because gosh darn it they need it after everything that’s happened.
> 
> ((Also I've never written from May's POV before so I really hope I did it justice))
> 
> Dedicated to my mother, who is truly a Mom among moms and, like May, has found herself with many “children” she doesn’t actually own. So here’s to you and your hoard of unofficial kids, Mom! Love ya lots!
> 
> And of course, Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!

“ _Finally_!” Daisy hisses, shooting a cursory look into the hallway as she hastily gestures Fitz and Jemma into the Playground’s commissary. “I thought we agreed on _ten thirty_.”

“We did,” Jemma confirms with an apologetic wince, setting a plastic grocery bag down on the counter.

“My mum likes to talk,” Fitz sighs, shaking his head fondly as he sets an identical bag down beside Jemma’s. “ _Especially_ to Jemma, who I’m pretty sure she loves more than me.”

Jemma throws a teasing smirk at Fitz, reminding him, “Well, you _are_ the one who married the woman she’s been saying for _years_ is like the daughter she never had; you should’ve seen this coming.”

Fitz opens his mouth, no doubt to fire back a retort, but Daisy waves her hands and says pointedly, “You guys can flirt later; we’re on a tight schedule here. I have no idea how long Coulson can keep May occupied and suspicion-free.”

“Right, right, sorry,” Jemma apologizes, hurrying to empty the contents of the plastic bags onto the counter. “Do you have everything else ready?”

Daisy nods, peering out into the hallway once more. “Yep. We’re all set.”

“You’re sure about chocolate?” Fitz asks her for what feels like the hundredth time, frowning down at the box in his hands.

“As sure I possibly can be with anything when it comes to May,” Daisy remarks with a roll of her eyes. “I couldn’t exactly _ask_ her – make one wrong comment, and she’ll have us figured out in two seconds flat.”

“If she doesn’t already suspect something,” Jemma points out, “When have we _ever_ been able to surprise May?”

Daisy is quiet a moment, pretending to be focused on keeping watch while she wracks her mind for an example. When nothing comes, she replies confidently, “This’ll be the first.” Then, turning to make a face at the two, she adds, “But…hurry up, okay?”

-

May watches Coulson closely as he leads the way down the hall, an easy smile on his face as he cajoles, “I think a late lunch is a great idea, don’t you? It’ll be nice to take a break after doing paperwork all morning.”

He seems relaxed enough to the untrained eye, but May knows all of his tells and can read him better than most; he’s anxious, not to mention carefully keeping something hidden from her. But, given his lack of worry, she isn’t too concerned, so she figures that if he doesn’t slip up and reveal something in the next twenty minutes, she can press then. “I suppose.”

When they reach the commissary, Coulson pauses and strangely, gestures for her to enter ahead of him. May eyes him suspiciously, but his smile doesn’t waver and he simply raises an eyebrow, nodding toward the door. She narrows her eyes, but decides that if there is ambush waiting for her in the commissary, he’d be the last to lead her into it, so without questioning him, she steps through the doorway.

“ _Surprise_!”

Or, perhaps he’d be the _first_.

Daisy, Fitz, and Jemma are gathered around the island of the commissary, which is piled with pancakes (Jemma’s doing, obviously), and there’s a freshly frosted cake as well (Fitz’s contribution, surely, as a boy raised by a single mother who loved to bake), a couple of pink balloons bobbing harmlessly behind them (Daisy’s idea, of course).

“Happy Mother’s Day!” they chorus, and May glances at each of the faces smiling at her (and she can’t help but imagine for a moment, the bright-eyed, innocent kids that first stepped onto the Bus almost four years ago, and thinks dryly that she _must_ be a mother if she’s picturing these adults as the inexperienced kids they once were).

She doesn’t quite know what to say – she’s known for some time that these kids looked up to her; she’s trained them, protected them, taught them everything she knows to make sure they stayed safe out there. She’s watched them grow, mourned the loss of their innocence, taken pride in their accomplishments. But she never could’ve imagined that they considered her to be like a _mother_ , not when they already have loving mothers (even Daisy’s mother, despite the tragic ending, had loved her fiercely), not when she’s subdued and distant and at times harsh and cold. What about the person she’s become since Bahrain made these three wonderful people look at her and see the mother she’d lost hope of ever being that horrible day?

Apparently, though, she doesn’t need to say anything. Coulson steps up beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder, gaining her attention. He smiles warmly and nods toward Daisy, Fitz, and Jemma. “C’mon, I think they have presents.”

May allows Coulson to lead her over to where the three are waiting, and Jemma beams at her as she explains, “I made plain pancakes, but there are also some with blueberries and some with chocolate chips – at Fitz’s request, of course.”

“The cake’s chocolate too,” Fitz adds, nodding to the vanilla-frosted cake with ‘ _Happy Mother’s Day May!_ ’ written out in pink icing. “Daisy insisted you’d prefer it.”

Daisy pulls something out from behind her back, revealing a bouquet tied together with pink ribbon. “I picked the daisies, obviously,” she explains, then points to the dark pink roses with a smirk, “Fitz chose roses because he’s unoriginal, and Jemma picked the carnations because –”

“Because they represent a mother’s love,” Jemma cuts in to finish excitedly, clearly proud of the research she’d done.

May automatically accepts the bouquet when Daisy hands it to her, already overwhelmed with all the thought and effort that had gone into all of this, but they’re not done yet. Daisy also produces a small, plain yellow gift bag, seemingly from nowhere. Gently, Coulson takes the bouquet from May so that the gift bag can take its place, and she’s surprised to find that her hands are trembling just slightly as she removes the tissue paper.

Inside is a rectangular frame that contains a picture of the three with May, taken at Daisy’s insistence on the day Jemma and Fitz had eloped months ago. Jemma and Fitz are on her right, faces aglow with wedded bliss, and Daisy’s to her left, grinning from ear to ear, May’s tiny smile looking conservative compared the pure joy on the faces surrounding her. However, the happiness she’d felt that day for the two who had found each other and held on tight through everything threatening to tear them apart is abundantly clear in her eyes, if not her smile.

When she can finally tear her eyes away from the rare sight of happiness on all of their faces, frozen forever in time, May once more finds the warm smiles of the three kids she’d unknowingly taken on as her own, who she’d helped, however much, to shape and grow. She thinks to herself that in all of the world, she couldn’t find three better human beings, that she couldn’t ask for anything more than them, than to be considered their mother.

A part of her wants to give words to how she feels in that moment, to the fullness of her heart that outshines the breaks and the cracks and makes them seem so much smaller than they are, but any words she could say would never be enough, so she hopes they understand when she simply says, “Thank you.”

And given the way all of their smiles grow, she thinks that, somehow, they do.

(May doesn’t like to consider herself a sentimental person, which is why she’ll never admit to the fact that she dries out the flowers in order to keep them, safely concealing them on the top shelf of her closet, nor to the fact that the framed picture holds a place of honor sitting on the bedside table in her bunk. Her best kept secret, however, is that she’d made a copy and sent it to her own mother, who had been complaining for years about not having pictures of grandchildren to display in her home. The only response she gets is a simple, “Good picture”, but the next time May pays her mother a visit, it is displayed proudly on the mantel.)

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on tumblr (I'm theartofbeinganerd over there as well), where I tend to post way more fic (shhh I'm lazy about titles)!


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